As one of nine building blocks of the Business Model Canvas, key resources are the aspects that are indispensable in your business model, so you can describe the infrastructure you need to create, deliver and capture value.

At the Kauffman Foundation's Energizing Health conference last Friday in Kansas City, panelists for "Collaborations: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" discussed how healthcare providers, administrators and entrepreneurs can find common ground and work together more effectively -- particularly in the tricky area of data-sharing.

Decisio Health, which provides software to help clinicians better adhere to clinical protocols, is one of the few software-specific companies entering the FDA-regulated space of clinical decision support.

Premarket Approval (PMA) is a process of regulatory review to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of certain medical devices. By contrast, a 510(k), also known as premarket notification, is a submission to the FDA that a product is safe and effective by comparing it to at least one similar device already on the market.

When Daniel Cane was pitching his specialty-specific electronic medical records company, Modernizing Medicine, to investors, he had no trouble getting in front of venture capitalists. But separating them from their money was another story.

Access to hospitals, patients, and insurers is one of the greatest challenges for healthcare entrepreneurs. To help early-stage healthcare entrepreneurs in this struggle for access, eMed has developed a new eBook on the topic.

One of the toughest challenges for healthcare entrepreneurs can be the roadblocks they face from their potential customers: healthcare providers. The SwipeSense team learned to expedite the process by finding a number of champions within a healthcare institution.

AdhereTech, a New York-based company that makes smart pill bottles to improve medication adherence and patient engagement, has landed pilot deals with two major pharmaceutical companies. But the road to those connections, especially for healthcare companies, often begins at an incubator.

For the life science textile company PurThread Technologies, landing an exclusive deal to embed Eastman Kodak's antimicrobial agent into textiles was a major victory that deserved celebrating. But PurThread president and CEO Lisa T. Grimes has made sure the company also lauded smaller achievements along the way.

Like many healthcare entrepreneurs with social missions at the center of their startups, Kinsa's founder and CEO Inder Singh was faced with the challenge of finding investors without pivoting from his company's central goal.

Advance directives are commonly used for end-of-life medical decisions, but through consumer research, MyDirectives' CEO and co-founder Jeff Zucker has learned they can be used to instantly make life better for all users, and not just those near death.

A well-established business model is important for any startup, but it becomes even more vital for startups developing platform technology. IRISense CEO Brent Cousino said his company had multiple value propositions for his innovation that have provided different expansion paths of success.

Paul Yock of Stanford's Biodesign and Jay Watkins of De Novo Ventures led a discussion with Marie Johnson, Darin Buxbaum, Brian Fahey and Peggy McLaughlin on the topic of clinical and regulatory strategy at a recent Life Science Ventures Summit hosted by the Kauffman Foundation (0:25:21-0:33:52).

Steve Blank has faced the challenge of healthcare startups and found a solution. First he taught the Lean LaunchPad class to the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps for two and a half years. As he has immersed himself in healthcare and its challenges, he has pinpointed the problem with most tech transfer offices.

"Domain specificity is important." It is so refreshing to hear a tech entrepreneur like Steve Blank say this. Blank has been working with researchers and clinicians for almost three years to bring the lean startup philosophy to healthcare. This is one of his conclusions about the industry.

With the drive to value from volume, medical device companies need to start focusing on how to effectively market to patients, their newest customers. Human Design Medical, the company that just launched the smallest, lightest CPAP machine on the market, has done extremely smart marketing for its smart product.

It is common for startups to focus on a specific group for the target market for their product, but developing an innovation that benefits the direct user as well as the indirect users can go a long way during an entrepreneur's journey.

Building on a simple idea can be the most important thing for a company in the long run. A focus on a simplified solution and a diverse marketing plan were two key things that set Smart Monitor on a successful path.

The race for the first noninvasive glucose meter to hit the market is well underway and many more healthcare startups are entering the competitive diabetes treatment space. While trying to treat a large patient population, it's still necessary to focus on the details and patient needs. It's time to really drill down the market research and think about what kind of patients will use your medtech and how and how your company's value to patients and providers might change over time. Neurometrix (NURO) founder and CEO Shai Gozani had these two key pieces of advice for diabetes treatment startups:

The CEO of a startup credited his company's success in raising money to two factors. Human data about the dissolving stent and a tight budget. Kamal Ramzipoor of Amaranth Medical said those two accomplishments helped his company raise $20 million in a series B round.

Douglas Crawford of QB3 moderated a therapeutics funding panel at a recent Life Science Ventures Summit hosted by the Kauffman Foundation. Crawford focused a majority of the discussion on pitch strategies with Allan May, Karl Handelsman and Jesus Soriano

Healthcare entrepreneurs who have hit the intellectual property speed bump can relate to the appropriately named session, "Reducing Drag: New Approaches to IP Negotiation and Technology Licensing," at the Partnering for Cures conference earlier this week in New York City.

Entrepreneurs need to be creative and innovative not only with their product or service, but also with how they think about their business model. In life science and digital health, understanding one's value proposition is key. But it's not always obvious - especially considering to whom the value proposition is most compelling. For this exercise, I find Alex Osterwalder's Value Proposition Canvas particularly helpful.

Kim Popovits, CEO of Genomic Health Inc., gave the keynote speech at a Life Science Ventures Summit hosted by the Kauffman Foundation. Popovits shared her personal experiences as examples during her speech, and a major focus was on developing a proper business model to gain the right investments (17:50-21:26).

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency enlisted the help of a Palo Alto-based startup, Palantir Technologies, to gather and analyze huge amounts of data to identify and understand terrorist groups and thwart their efforts.

Innovation is often called "disruptive" in the healthcare industry, and the first step toward making that innovation successful is to get a product's targeted users to accept change. Founder of Fitzeal, Clifton Dawson, found a way to get people to use his product by focusing on a strong user support system.

Getting healthcare innovation ideas off the ground is not easy in this mostly conservative industry. Having a proper business model can help startups to keep pushing forward and being more efficient with their time and effort. The video series called "From Idea to Business" offers strategies, things to avoid and step-by-step examples for entrepreneurs throughout the series.

As politicians have continued to debate the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare," some federal health officials have been working to spread the word about another aspect of healthcare reform: the move to give consumers more access to their own healthcare data.

For those hoping to use data analytics as a tool to help improve the U.S. healthcare system, patient records represent a potential gold mine of information to identify the most effective and cost-efficient practices to diagnose and treat specific conditions.

Scott Howell, head of patient access at Genentech, led a panel at a Life Science Ventures Summit hosted by the Kauffman Foundation on the topic of reimbursement strategies. Howell directed the panel, consisting of Christine Bunt, Danielle Zurovcik, Steve Rosenberg and Sean Duffy, on the sub-topic of payer insights.

Data will drive many of the sweeping changes coming with the Affordable Care Act to the U.S. healthcare system. At the StrataRx conference in Boston this week, innovators in “big data” for healthcare assessed its role in bringing advances in personalized and predictive medicine, major cost savings and research that leads to new technologies.

I am often asked about collaborations across disciplines and whether these result in real economic impact. I was recently reminded of not only how powerful this work can be but that it takes time to bloom.

Passed in September 2011, the final phases of the America Invents Act went into effect in March. Cyrus Morton, a partner at the Minneapolis office of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi said this law represents the biggest change since the 1950s.

It's the classic conundrum for healthcare entrepreneurs: You want your business to move fast and grow quickly, but it can take months for large health systems to make a decision about your product or service.

The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur provides insights into motivation, education and family history of startup founders. The research also shares views of those founders on determining success of new companies.

Jake Halpert, CEO of Lucidity Health, agrees with the conventional wisdom that the team is the most important aspect of an early-stage health care business. But, he added, an entrepreneur shouldn't wait for the perfect team to start his company.

A lively conversation has ensued over at the Medical Devices LinkedIn group in response to a member who posed the question: What are the three mistakes startups make that could act as advice for the industry moving forward?

The money is still out there, but don't take it until you absolutely have to. That was the advice to healthcare startups from Fahd M.T. Riaz, a partner in Morgan Lewis's Business and Finance Practice. He talked about trends in funding for healthcare startups on a panel at CONVERGE with Kelly Campbell Slone of the National Venture Capital Association, Joe Hammer of GE Capital Healthcare Fianancial Services, Fadh Riaz, and Elliot Menschik of DreamIt Ventures.
Sixty-five percent of his clients are emerging startups and the rest are big companies like J&J and Boston Scientific.

While the healthcare reform debate continues, fueled by the recent delay of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision requiring companies with more than 50 employees to extend health insurance to their full-time staff, the government can help improve access, value and quality of healthcare by encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation that can lead to lowering costs while improving medical technologies and services, according to Jonathan Ortmans' policy forum blog.

CellScope creates tools for consumers to use at home to remotely diagnose common ailments. Its co-founder offered entrepreneurial insights on selling the vision, finding the right funding fit, and not being afraid to ask.

That's one of the predicaments entrepreneurs face when they go into a meeting with a potential VC investor. What information should be included in a pitch deck? What questions should founders be prepared to answer? What aspects of the business don't investors need to know about when they're considering an investment?

At MedCity CONVERGE, a national, executive-level summit on healthcare innovation in Philadelphia last week, stakeholders from the business community, government, and health insurers provided a glimpse into new opportunities for life science and digital health entrepreneurs.

Many things can make you a better entrepreneur. But here's one that certainly helps: networking. So every week eMed is going to highlight some healthcare and life science entrepreneurs on twitter you should consider following. This is not an endorsement, but an encouragement. Entrepreneurship is better when everyone joins the conversation. So please join us by following @emedcommunity and participating on eMed at Entrepreneurship.org
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At MedCity CONVERGE, a national, executive-level summit on healthcare innovation in Philadelphia this week, eMed sat down with the Kauffman Foundation's Dominique Pahud to discuss access for entrepreneurs.

MedCity CONVERGE, a national, executive-level summit in Philadelphia next week, will bring together decision-makers and stakeholders to provide a glimpse at the future of medical innovation and the opportunities and challenges facing the industry.

Sure, curmudgeons are good in theory, but can critics improve a company? I figured it was an idea worth exploring. Here's what seven entrepreneurs learned from their biggest critics. Share your insights from grumps in the comments.

The team behind the University Business Incubator Index set out to find the top university incubators in the world, discover what makes them successful, and learn where others are falling short. Over the past year, they collected data on 150 university incubators in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. They interviewed incubator managers, entrepreneurs and investors, and came up with about 60 independent indicators of success. Then they scored each incubator, adjusting scores for those in the most favorable and unfavorable locations.

When WiFi-enabled medical devices first came on the scene, there were relatively few of them. But as these devices have proven their worth, they have exploded in growth from hundreds to thousands in hospital environments. There are so many wireless devices competing on hospitals' WiFi systems and its increasing the risk that the devices will malfunction.

One thing that helps entrepreneurs is networking. So every week @emedcommunity is going to highlight some healthcare and life science entrepreneurs on twitter you should consider following. This is not an endorsement, but an encouragement. Network with your peers!

eMed has published the second in a series of white papers focused on issues key to life science and digital health entrepreneurs. The new white paper, Access, offers a crash course on access to potential customers, access to networks, access to capital, and access to care settings.

Some advice is good enough to repeat and repeat and repeat. Marti Nyman is managing director of Altavail Partners, LLC, an innovation, strategy and business acceleration consultancy. He also writes at Think. Act. Grow. He recently spoke at a meet up of Healthcare.mn to share advice about building a new company. The advice is not new but it's easy to forget when you are focused on tactics and details of your unique company.

A technology entrepreneur and health researcher, Ian Eslick considered how to tap unusual revenue sources to build and sustain projects that would have value in the healthcare system. He came up with a solution in Vital Reactor, which keeps track of profit shares for people who contributed to a startup.

STC Biologics is a Cambridge-based biotechnology company focused on the development of biologic drugs. Magdalena Leszczyniecka, the company's president and CEO, launched the business just as the market crashed. After several years in the field, Leszczyniecka shared her experiences with bartering, negotiating, and asking for help.

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who make early-stage investments in and provide advice to startups. In a slump following the recession, angel investment rebounded in 2011 with angels investing $22 billion in entrepreneurs.

At the MedTech Investing Conference in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health outlined the administration's key priorities related to the med tech industry.

Thanks to the movement of research and development to China and India, scientists there are quickly developing the ability to innovate and create their own intellectual property, according to a Kauffman Foundation study.

The Silicon Valley might not be the "friendliest" place to start your life science or digital health company. A small business survey released this month by the Kauffman Foundation and Thumbtack.com gave Austin, Virginia Beach, and Houston top honors as the friendliest cities for small businesses.

A collaborative chronic care network based at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center links entrepreneurs with doctors, patients, families, researchers, and other stakeholders. C3N, funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is meant to improve health outcomes for large populations, accelerate the pace of learning, and increase the speed of innovation – all while reducing healthcare costs.

The vision at Bioarray Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in Boston, is to improve cancer detection and treatment. By finding genes associated with cancer, the company is developing a diagnostic for breast cancer that can help doctors and patients choose the best treatment.

With U.S. healthcare costs rising about 2.5 percent faster than inflation, there’s an urgent need to improve productivity and quality in American healthcare. A Kauffman Foundation report found that open access to medical data could help find that cost-benefit balance.

With Washington buzzing about the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform this year, a new Kauffman Foundation white paper showed how Startup Visas for foreign-born entrepreneurs could help jumpstart the economy.

DioGenix, in Gaithersburg, Md., was founded in 2009 after CEO Larry Tiffany and his senior management team saw a clear clinical need: monitoring disease progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). Tiffany has an extensive background in biotech, as an IP attorney, and as a senior executive at small and mid-size biotech companies. Before DioGenix, he was senior vice president and general manager of genomics for another genomics research company, Gene Logic.

Three years ago, Jason Bhan, MD, a family practitioner, went into business with a cousin—Sundeep Bhan, a serial entrepreneur—and a friend, Destry Sulkes, also an MD. The three healthcare entrepreneurs founded Medivo, which developed tools to track symptoms, explain lab results, and provide personalized health information.

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